"That'll be next," Fez said matter-of-factly. "Market-segment translations. In time the language of every subgroup of society will get as specialized as the data it uses, and we'll have a new set of suburbs in the global village. Or rather, the same old suburbs with new names."
"There goes the neighborhood," Rosa said, still gazing at the screen with distaste. "Or here comes the neighborhood. Whatever's right."
Fez shrugged. "People keep looking for ways to chunk themselves. Do you think your average thrash-rockers care if the credit on the latest video firestorm reads 'EyeTraxx' or 'Diversifications' or 'Some Asshole in Detroit'? That's why this didn't make it into the general music news. Anyone who cares about the business end is already tapped into BizNet, not G-Clef. The musicians are all on PerfectPitch, the techies are downloading CircuitBreak-"
"-and the rest of the world can go hang," Sam said thoughtfully.
Fez laughed. "By George, she's got it. Well, anyway, what this says, more or less, is that Diversifications investigated the possibility of a takeover of Hall Galen Enterprises as a whole, and Galen cut a deal, divesting himself of the EyeTraxx business unit, and they took that in a settlement."
Rosa put a finger on the screen. "Is that this part here- 'growth opportunities altered in reorganization, closing the aperture around the IBU? What's an IBU?"
"Independent business unit," Fez said absently. "A term for everything and everything in a term. There's a cross-ref here to MedLine, in Research: Human/Brain/Neurophysiology."
"I can read that just fine," Rosa said. "But why in hell would an item like this have a cross-ref in Med-for-god's-sake-Line?"
A small box blossomed in the lower central area of the screen, blinking a notice: 24 min. free access time left.
"Fucking gougers," Sam said, pointing at the box. The number changed to 23 as she watched. "That makes me so mad. Fucking surcharges."
Rosa shrugged as Fez touched the speed box at the top of the screen and selected the MedLine cross-reference out of the small menu that appeared at the bottom of the screen. "Could be worse. They could have just raised all the rates across the board."
Fez chuckled. "They might yet. 'Truth is cheap, but information costs.' I can't remember who said that."
"Vince What's-His-Name," said Sam. "Died in a terrorist raid or something. I thought you said all information should be free."
"It should. It isn't. Knowledge is power. But power corrupts. Which means the Age of Fast Information is an extremely corrupt age in which to live."
"Aren't they all?" Sam asked him.
He smiled his dreamy little smile at her. "Ah, but I think we're approaching a kind of corruption unlike anything we've ever known before, Sam-I-Am. Sometimes I think we may be on the verge of an original sin."
She didn't get the reference, but she felt a sudden chill run up the back of her neck. "Goose walked over my grave," she said.
"To get to the other side," Rosa murmured. Sam gave her a look.
"Besides being rich," Fez said, "you have to be extra sharp these days to pick up any real information. You have to know what you're looking for, and you have to know how it's filed. Browsers need not apply. Broke ones, anyway. I miss the newspaper."
"Don't you get one?" Sam asked, surprised. "I do. Even while I was out in the Ozarks, I had no trouble at all getting The Daily You."
"Feh. That's not a newspaper. In my day we called it a dipping service, and it's not even a good one. A bunch of glorified headlines in a watered-down hodgepodge. Ah, at last." Fez froze the screen and began scrolling line by line. "Dr. Lindel Joslin, installed at blah, blah, blah, brain-path research, blah, blah, receptors, receptors, more receptors-" Several more lines marched up the screen. "Here it is. Hm. She's an implant surgeon. Research completed under the auspices of Hall Galen Enterprises and EyeTraxx, any and all subsequent patents now wholly owned by Diversifications, Inc."
"Patents?" Rosa said.
Fez shook his head and read a little farther before straightening up, pushing his hands against the small of his back. "Can't make head or tail of the rest of it. Medspeak."
Rosa laughed. "Crank that translator into overdrive, and let's see what she can do."
Sam was still studying the screen. "It still doesn't explain why some esoteric biz item about a takeover of a rock-video company would have a cross-ref in MedLine."
"Well, obviously because this Dr. Joslin was being funded by EyeTraxx," Rosa said. "Diversifications must have taken over her funding, so they've taken over whatever she was working on. It begs the question of why EyeTraxx was funding her. Tax shelter?" She nudged Fez.
"One possibility." He folded his wiry arms. "Actually, I think I can shed some light on the question of the cross-ref, and Sam, I think you can provide some of the fill-in details."
Sam looked at him, startled. "I can?"
"You only have part of Keely's zap," he said. "I have the other part. You show me what you have, and I'll show you what I have, and between the two of us, maybe we'll have something for real."
She grinned. "You'll show me yours if I show you mine?" She tucked a hand in her right pants pocket where the erstwhile insulin pump was resting against her thigh. "My chips aren't compatible with your system. Mind using mine?"
Fez lifted an eyebrow. "You have a system cleverly concealed about your person?"
She took the pump out of her pocket and showed it to him and Rosa. Fez's surprised expression deepened as he squinted at the palm-sized unit on her outstretched hand. "To my knowledge you're not a diabetic, especially not one whose body keeps rejecting pancreas implants. Very clever." He started to take it from her and spotted the wire snaking under the tail of her shirt. "Oh, God, Sam, not really."
"What?" said Rosa. "What's going on?"
Sam lifted her shirt just high enough to show where the two needles went into the fleshiest part of her abdomen. "You were wrong when you figured I was too busy roughing it to check out the latest in nanotechnology," she told Fez, a little smugly. "The Ozarks turned out to be about the best place I could have gone with my hot hack. I found a lab where I could trade scut work for work space."
"Oh, God!" Rosa made a gagging noise. "That's an atrocity! You're sick!"
"I'm a potato clock," Sam corrected her.
"You're a potato head," Fez said grimly. "What's wrong with batteries?"
"Not personal enough. No, no, I'm kidding." She laughed at his revolted look. "It's just an alternative power source. You can use batteries, or house current with an adapter, but if the power fails from one or the other, it's crash time. This never crashes. The Dive had this stored in a very out-of-the-way place. I bet my father doesn't even know about it. Probably they meant it for people working in isolated areas under hostile conditions-Antarctica, surface of the moon, places like that."
"Good for espionage, too." Fez winced. "What do you use for a screen?"
She put on the sunglasses. "You'll have to adjust the focal length for your own eye. Projects right onto the retina. How bad s your astigmatism?"
Fez touched the wire. "Hurt much?"
"Stings when I first put it on, but after that I almost forget It's there."
"That's because you're sick," Rosa said, refusing to look. "They'd never have put it over, never, never, never."
"She's right," said Fez. "Most people will reject anything that requires them to be a pin cushion. The hard-core diabetics and the endocrine cases do it, but ask them if they like it. Someone in Diversifications' research and development lab has a real ghoulish streak." He handed the pump back to Sam. "Give me your software and drive. I've got an adapter."